Silicon Valley Nation: The young and the fearless (engineers)

The emerging generation of engineers is different from previous generations and it may not be just youthful enthusiasm.

bf sv nation young engineers
SAN FRANCISCO--It could just be a generational thing. Or it could be
something fundamentally different.

Young engineers today are fearless, energetic and wide open to the
possibilities the profession can bring them. They come from
engineering families and they don't. Some of their parents are
truckers, teachers, accountants. Some are scientists and engineers.
Some come from well-to-do backgrounds; some descend from American
Indian reservations.

Almost all tinkered at an early age and were often inspired by one
person, a teacher or a grandparent who invariably said "can you fix
this? Give it a try. There's no wrong answer." Some dream of
starting their own companies; others just want to solve tough
problems. Others love the life-long learning the profession
represents.

Ojas Bapat is one of the young and fearless. He works for Spansion
and is finishing his Ph.D in speech recognition algorithms at the
same time.

"I decided in 8th grade to be an engineer because I
liked fixing things--you know blenders and what not," he says in
an interview. "My parents always knew and never questioned my
decision to be an engineer, even though they had no idea what it
is like to be an engineer."

He also stood back and examined the state of the industry, where he
felt "industry trends seemed to be the best at the time and I stuck
with it because I liked it."

"I enjoyed tinkering with things. I was always
playing with electronics – robotics, make small things, nothing
really fancy. I thought about getting into the pure sciences but
was drawn to more applied focus."

In general, engineers are able to build. Question is what to build. It takes more than engineering to create a product and this is why founding a company typically takes more than 1 person.
I agree with daleste. Young engineers shall try to pus the envelope because, really, you will learn a lot by +ve confirmation your idea or by making mistake. Fearless is priceless. ;)

Fresh outs have big opportunities right now. All the large companies are eager to hire them. My advice is to find a good company with interesting work and keep learning. Don't be afraid to push the envelope and not do things their way just because they always have. If you push hard enough, they will either fire you or promote you. Either way, you grow.

"Bapat said:
"My advice to student engineers is to seek positions in companies that seek to compete with value-added differentiators – in quality, performance, functionality."
That's ironic, coming from someone who works for a company that has barely made a profit this quarter and was in a complete FUBAR 3 years ago...